


i won't even wish for snow

by aceofdiamonds



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 21:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5307731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Anything moving?” Ryan asks after a while for what must be the tenth time in an hour. Yeah. They’ve been able to go for about thirty minutes now but Pam is having so much fun sitting in this freezing car with her co-worker that she decided not to follow the car in front when it sped away into the snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i won't even wish for snow

**Author's Note:**

> this is so early! too early for christmas! i started writing this last christmas, didn't finish it in time, and then forgot all about it until today when i watched love actually and threw myself into the christmas mood.

It’s been a long week. Her rent is due, she’s had a headache for the last three days, and the surprise meeting at corporate could have gone better. All things considered, Pam figures she should have seen this coming. _Of course_ she is stuck in a car with Ryan Howard, in the middle of a blizzard halfway between Scranton and New York, four days before Christmas. _Obviously_ this is something that has had to happen to her for the universe to feel accomplished with herself.

“Fuck,” Ryan mutters, dropping his head against the passenger side window when another five minutes passes without any movement ahead. “Fuck this.”

“This isn’t how I wanted to spend today either,” Pam says, just because she feels she should. Ryan is acting like he has it way worse than her when really, they’re just about the same, believe her, she knows.

“I had plans,” is said into the window.

Here is where she bites back that she had plans too but the truth is her evening was going to be filled with a lot of solitary TV watching and trying to not to think about all the couples getting ready for Christmas together in places much more exciting than Scranton, Pennsylvania. She hasn’t had much in the way of plans for a solid two months now, excluding the six weeks before that had been spent wondering if she and Jim had made the right decision in going separate ways. The whole thing isn’t as sad as it sounds, she promises.

The silence stretches on for what feels like forever.

“Anything moving?” Ryan asks after a while for what must be the tenth time in an hour. Yeah. They’ve been able to go for about thirty minutes now but Pam is having so much fun sitting in this freezing car with her co-worker that she decided not to follow the car in front when it sped away into the snow.

“No, Ryan, nothing’s changed. You’re stuck here with me.”

She thinks she hears him say something under his breath at that and she doesn't even want to know so she leans forward and hits the stereo. Mariah Carey screams out of the speakers, loud enough to make Ryan jerk and hit his head on the window, a laugh bursting from Pam too quickly to be covered up by a cough.

“What the hell, Pam?”

“You don’t like this song?” she asks, widening her eyes innocently. It’s amazing what that song can do to someone’s mood, even if it is completely overplayed by the 12th of December. Michael likes to play it on repeat for the last week before Christmas; she can’t decide if she’s happy or sad that she’s missing out on today’s fill. Well, she’s hearing it now. And so is Ryan, who is looking somewhere between wanting to get out the car and walking to Scranton and is that -- “Ryan, is your knee jiggling?”

“It is not.” But oh, it is definitely some sort of contained dancing and he looks _furious_ about it. “It’s a fucking catchy song, okay?”

Pam laughs again, startled by how loud it sounds. “Sure it is, Ryan. Sure it is.”

“I hate you.”

She responds by nudging the music louder with her finger, a smile curling over Ryan’s lips when she mimes along to the high notes that surely can’t be humanly possible. The song fades to an end, bells jingling, and when the DJ’s voice comes on, blaring and uncomfortable, Pam spins the dial back down a few notches and wonders if that moment is over.

“So.”

“Don’t even try it, Pam,” Ryan groans, rolling his head back on the headrest. He blinks at her slowly, somehow managing to look bored and carefree even as she feels the tension roll off him. “This isn’t some impromptu bonding trip. Believe me, if Michael knew the weather could get me trapped in a car with him he would have tried.”

“You’re saying I’m better than Michael, right?”

Ryan huffs a laugh. “Pam. In that office you’re several people above Michael.” He stops, twists in his seat to face her, “You know, Michael didn’t have a half bad idea about the paper company.”

“And the fact that we were broke after what, three months, is no indication of how terrible it was?”

“Sure, the short-term sucked but Dunder Mifflin shit their pants at the rate we stole their clients -- if we could have kept that going we could have been in some serious business.”

Pam waves her hand, dismissing Ryan’s daydreams of destroying Dunder Mifflin and pushing aside how great she had felt for those few weeks in that tiny room with two people she never thought she would get along with so well. “We would never find a name as snappy as The Michael Scott Paper Company,” she points out, smiling slightly when Ryan dips his head in agreement.

For all that she’s complained about this, Ryan really isn’t the worst person she could have been in this situation with. She feels like she knows a little more about him now, after he told her about Thailand and that he lets his dog sleep on his bed at night. He’s allergic to seafood and one time he cried at Forrest Gump and another time he laughed so hard when a cheese ball got caught in Pam’s hair that she thinks she saw tears. Things like that humanise him, take him away from that monster like machine he was when he worked at corporate. She thinks maybe this is good for him, working in a smaller city away from everything big and loud and exciting in New York. Maybe she thinks the same about herself.

“It’s snowing again,” Ryan says, knocking on the window. His hair is curling over his forehead and the difference is tiny but it makes him look a little more relaxed. He had shrugged off his jacket when they first stopped and now his shirt sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. Pam doesn’t know how he’s doing this; she’s freezing and not far away from asking for his coat if she knew if he would give her it or not. She knows Ryan better now, and she likes him better now, but he’s still a spiteful bastard, because some things never change. “I hate snow,” he says now, conversationally, which Pam takes as an allowance to comment.

“Even as a kid?”

“Well when I was a kid I wasn’t concerned about transportation issues, was I, Pam?”

“I honestly couldn’t say, Ryan,” Pam says, laughing when Ryan turns to face her, eyes narrowed. “I bet you’ve never made a snow angel.”

“I’m not stupid enough to take that and try to prove myself to you like Dwight would --”

“Hey, Dwight would be _proud_ to do it --”

“I have anyway,” Ryan says, and then he grins, and Pam feels that last little bit of tension in her stomach disappear. “Bet you would give yours hats or something stupid like that.”

“No, snowmen get hats,” Pam corrects him, hand reaching out to nudge up the volume again as Wizzard starts to sing about Christmas everyday. “Angels can manage fine on their own.”

Ryan raises an eyebrow at that, considering. “If you say so,” he shrugs, “seems like a tough job up there, cold, too, and if you’re not providing them with hats...”

“Oh, so now’s when you want to campaign for a ridiculous cause -- where was this enthusiasm when Michael wanted to cure rabies?”

He affects a remorseful look, one so over-the-top and fake that Pam reaches out and punches his arm which only makes him do it more. “Ow --,” and then he catches her hand, holding it still. She doesn’t mind. He’s warm. “I don’t think corporate would’ve been happy with me supporting Michael’s schemes, do you?”

Pam waves her free hand in a _yeah yeah_ gesture. “Well I’m sure the angels will be thrilled to have you onboard.”

“Don’t laugh at me, Beesly,” Ryan groans, and then they both pause for a second because that name has always been Jim’s and now it’s not and Pam isn’t sure if she’s supposed to like Ryan using it or not. Like the hand, she doesn’t hate it; like the hand, it’s a display of warmth. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She shakes her head. “It’s fine.”

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” he says then, voice a little hesitant but when she looks at him his face is defiant, “but I never really liked him.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what I want to hear,” because at work it’s all _Jim is such a good guy_ and _you might not find like him again_ and _we miss Jim_ all with fake sympathy and sometimes glares from Michael, Jim’s biggest fan. Pam knows Jim is all of those things but she also knows that after all of those years waiting and hoping, the real thing just hadn’t been worth the wait. She had offered to leave Scranton, had been happy to, but Jim and Michael and Oscar and quite a few more had asked her to stay, declaring their side in the break-up.

Ryan had asked her too. Not in so many words but he had visited her desk a couple of times a day, complaining about the sweets or Kelly or Michael and sometimes at lunch he would come over and sit with her, making her laugh with his little comments about TV and the world in general. She doesn’t want to pin it all on Ryan here because he’s not why she stayed, she stayed because this is where she works and most of the time she enjoys working there, but the inclusion and comradeship she has with him has been a huge help over the last few months.

Now, he smiles at what she says, those defiant, petty little words, and he adds to them. “In that case, he’s a dick and I’m glad he’s gone.”

“You’ve got a better desk now,” Pam says.

“That’s true,” and then he leans back, propping his feet up on the dashboard and looks at her, not quite smiling but almost there. It’s Christmas -- this is the time where it’s perfectly acceptable for Pam to take a little more from this and say that he’s glad she stayed.

She opens her mouth to say something in reply to that but Ryan’s fiddling with the radio, flicking through the channels quicker than Pam can catch anything. He pauses for longer and lets her listen, rolling his eyes when she stops him from moving on, “Wait, I love this one.”

“Of course you do, Pam,” he says, in that tone that makes her want to punch him because he thinks he’s lived the world while she’s sat in Scranton, safe and sound.

“Can you see anything up ahead?” she asks, choosing to change the subject.

Ryan shakes his head, craning his head to see around the lorry a few places in front of them. The snow is getting heavier but a couple of ploughs appeared not long ago, they should be getting out of here soon.

“No -- wait, yes! I think we’re moving,” Ryan says, triumphant. He relaxes back into his seat, more at ease now the end is in sight, and Pam can’t decide if she’s relieved or disappointed. She’s still freezing -- she thinks maybe if she asked for his coat now he might say yes. Still not wanting to risk it she turns the heating up just as she watches cars a few places in front of them start to turn their engines back on, lights bright through the haze of the snow.

Pam turns the key and shifts into first gear and they slowly inch along the interstate; the pace is excruciatingly slow but at least they’re moving which feels like a miracle after that long stretch of time in a standstill.

It takes a few minutes for the speed to pick up as cars move away from each other and step on the accelerator to get home and then it takes another few before either of them talk again.

“It was a fucking motorbike,” Ryan says as they pass the cause of the hold-up. Pam glances over Ryan to see the bashed motorbike sprawled on the snowy hard shoulder, the driver thankfully standing upright beside it looking angry and frustrated as men in overalls lift it onto the bed of a truck.

“Michael would’ve been out there with them --”

“Making it all ten times worse,” Ryan finishes for her when she wonders exactly what Michael would have been doing.

“He means well,” she defends him, as she always seems to being doing. She’s right, though, even if it’s hard to see a lot of the time, Michael always has the best intentions in whatever he’s doing. “Hopefully whoever has him for Secret Santa remembers that.” A couple of years ago someone had taken out their frustrations on Michael’s ineptitude in the office and got him a book on how to be a better boss. He had laughed, obviously, always eager to be in on the joke, but he had taken it into his office as the party was winding down and Pam had caught him dog-earring pages to come back to. She doesn’t want that to happen again.

“Fuck,” Ryan says suddenly, Pam’s foot twitching on the brake before she realises that there’s no immediate danger in front of them and it’s just Ryan’s brain.

“What?”

“I forgot about Secret Santa.”

“Who d’you have?”

He narrows his eyes at her. With his hair still that horrible bleached blond his eyebrows look too dark. “What if I’ve got you, Pam, then that wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?”

Pam rolls her eyes -- see, she’s good at that too -- and turns up the volume of the radio again. This time it’s not a Christmas song but something from the charts, something jangly and catchy and loud. She hums along, nails tapping on the gear stick. She knows Ryan better now; she knows how to wait him out.

“Phyllis,” he mutters.

“Phyllis is easy,” Pam tells him. “She loves scarves.”

“Thanks, Pam. Who d’you have?”

“What if I’ve got you, Ryan, then that wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?” she parrots back at him, laughing when he throws an empty bottle he finds on the floor at her. “Stop, I’m driving!”

“Tell me who you’ve got, Pam,” Ryan insists, so close to whining Pam laughs again. “Come on, I might be able to help you.”

“I’ve already gotten my present, Ryan, because I’m _organised_ ,” she retorts, flipping him off when he opens his mouth to say what that implies about her social life. “Fine. I’ve got Toby.”

Which surprisingly doesn’t get much of a reaction from Ryan. “Toby’s one of the few people in that place I don’t hate,” he tells her.

“Toby’s nice,” she agrees.

“If I spend enough time with him Michael feels betrayed and doesn’t talk to me for a few days,” Ryan laughs. “Helps that Toby’s alright to talk to.”

“Win-win.”

“Exactly.”

The rest of the journey home is quiet. They comment on passing cars and over-the-top Christmas lights they spot as they head into Scranton and whenever All I Want for Christmas Is You comes on the radio one of them spins the dial to the highest setting and sing along. It’s a surreal journey at the end of a surreal day. When Pam drops Ryan at his house he stays in the car for a couple of minutes longer, both of them watching the women further down the street teeter on the ice as she tries to control her dog, and when he finally reaches back for his coat and bag and opens the door to leave Pam wishes desperately for a moment that he would stay even longer. She’s sure it’s not the specific person she wants, just the company, because it’s Christmas and she’s lonely, but she knows that Ryan’s not a bad choice, either.

But she keeps her mouth shut and Ryan gets out the car, ducking back down to say, “Thanks for the ride, Pam. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” She raises her hand in a wave. “See you tomorrow, Ryan.”

 

(The next day Michael makes a fuss about his two favourite employees being stranded on the open road, calling everyone into the conference room to open a discussion of Traffic Jam Choices, a spin on the Desert Island game. Pam doesn’t offer up a choice but later, when Michael plays the daily dose of Mariah Carey, she lifts her head from her computer, catching Ryan’s eye at Jim’s old desk, and grins.)

 

 


End file.
